Tennant Refuses To Do Pay For Maintenance-help!
300k condo rented for lousey 1650 in collapsed Michigan economy. She (tennant) is bleeding me dry with several nusciance calls. I attempted to add a clause that tennant pays first 75 dollars of all repairs-but she made me take it out. The lease says she is to maintain all the equipment but what do I do when I tell her this clause in the lease and she wants the hair removed from the shower stopper,the water softner replaced-the ect.
Hey,
I too have never understand the concept of requiring the tenant to pay for repairs. In the real world here is what happens:
The sink has a small leak. It would cost me around $1.50 worth of plumbers putty to fix, but instead of calling me (because they are concerned about having to pay the first $50), they let it keep dripping. After a year (and the tenants have disappeared into the night), I have to replace a bathroom cabinet and maybe even some subfloor.
Having tenants do repairs is a bad idea.
In this case, in a tight market, make the tenant happy.
Bruce
In FL, you can add any clause you want to a lease, but a judge will say that it is the landlords job to maintain the property in safe and habitable condition. In FL this means that the landlord take care of the air conditioner, the plumbing, the roof, windows, screens, all the mechanical systems. And if you rented the unit with any appliances, then the landlord must maintain the appliances.
I have in a couple of my leases that the tenant is responsible for the first $$ of repairs, but these are lease option tenants or owners who have sold to me and are now leasing back. They are tenants who consider themselves the mental owner of the property. But still .... when the 3k septic need replacing they will look to me and a judge would say that I am responsible.
For nuisance calls that are not damaging your unit - like tripped circuit breakers, light bulbs, slow drains, etc just stand tough. You need to make it first uncomfortable for them so that they have some incentive to learn to fix it themselves. Tenants are a lot like children.